BIOS does not see HD on boot up

I recently thought I would challenge myself and build my own PC rather than buy an ready assembled machine. I bought all the parts, put them together fairly easily, but have run into a problem, which I hope someone on this forum can help me with.

My hard drive is connected as the Primary IDE device and is set to master.

My CD Drive is connected as the Secondary IDE device and is also set to master.

Problem is: When I boot my machine, the Hard Drive (Primary) is not recognised. The CD Drive (Secondary) is recognised.

I have to go into the BIOS setup everytime I start the computer, wait about 30 secs for it to realise their is a hard drive attached and manually set the Primary IDE option to look at this device.

However, if I change the configuration and put both IDE devices on the same cable - Hard Disk as Master and CD Drive as Slave, the machine boots up beautifully!!

I really can't work this one out, it has me stumped now for at least a week. I have plugged/unplugged cables about 100 times, so I pretty confident its not a cable problem.

I'm pretty desperate to work this out, so any help is greatly appreciated.

Well you have to make sure that both devices are placed on the first set of pins on the cable. That is reserved for the master, if you have your HDD placed on the end of the ribbon (where slaves should go) it will not recognize it.

Also there is nothing wrong with having your CD and HDD on the same ribbon, because if you add another CDR drive you will want them on different ribbons in case you want to copy cd's on the fly, it will be much better.

I hope this helps, and post back if not.

BTW,
:wave: Welcome to TechSpot :wave:
Have a look at this thread and introduce yourself to everyone

Check the jumper settings for your hard drive, and set it to whatever is printed on the label for a single attached drive setting. You may have selected master setting that only applies when two devices are attached on the same cable. You can always try the CS (cable select) setting as that will always work.

Thanks for the reply guys, you have both made me a happy man. I changed the jumper to CS on both HD and CD Drive and it works a treat. Its amazing how the small things give you so much please, anyway I really appreciate the help.

I'm a software person, but am trying to expand my hardware knowledge, so at least I learn't something from all the frustration this has caused me.

One more quick question, what is the difference between setting the drives as CS, rather than Master, will it affect performance in any way?

I have also just purchased all the equipment to set up a home wireless network, so thats my next task. So no doubt I will be popping back for more info, when that starts to drive me insane.

Setting your IDE devices to CS simply means that the drive at the end of the cable will be Master, and the one in the middle will be slave. This allows you to move your drives around without worrying about jumper settings. There is no performance drawback whatsoever.

I read this thread with interest, as I thought it was going to answer my problem. But mine seems slightly different from mccannt's. I wonder if you guys can help me anyway.
I have a PC that used to work fine but recently started crashing with KERNEL_DATA_INPAGE_ERROR STOP:0x0000007A (0xC02017D4, 0xC000000E, 0x805F593D, 0x03799860)
It has now "progressed" to a point where the BIOS doesn't recognise that there's a disk present at all. I've fiddled around with jumpers and positions on the ribbon cable but to no avail.

I'd be really grateful if you guys could shed any light on what's happened and if, as I suspect, this is some kind of hardware failure, how I might at least breath enough life back into the disk to retrieve the data it holds.

Have a look at this thread and see if one of those Drive Diagnostice Utilities helps check you HDD.

If that fails, Try unplugging everything else on your ribbon but your HDD and see if that helps. Also if you have been playing around with it make sure none of the pins are bent, as that can happen fairly easy.

Many thanks, this is one of the most helpful, friendly and useful forums I've come across. No joy with my disk though, I'm afraid. However I've discovered that there is a known fault with my disk, which is a Fujitsu MPG3204AT and the symptoms exactly match what happened to me. At least now I can take the disk back to my client with a clear explanation of why it really wasn't my fault.
Thanks again for your help.